After leaving the seminary, I remember reading the book I LEAP OVER THE WALL, by Monica Baldwin. Our cases were very different, since she had been in for 35 years, and I for a few months, but I related strongly to her story. I remember her saying that she still recited the Divine Office (Latin Psalms of the Breviarium Romanum) every day. I could easily understand and appreciate that. Reentering the secular world is a big adjustment. I gave myself a semester to readjust, and then entered San Diego City College.
SDCC (the old, downtown campus) was like a big, concrete playpen. My parents could not afford to put me through college, but they wanted me to live with them while I went. It was my habit to arrive early and attend daily Mass before my first class. I had a couple of PhDs among my teachers, among them the unforgettable Theodore Bardacke. I knew that I was fortunate. To cover my expenses, I worked as a playground supervisor and camp counselor for a Catholic charity. My grades were good, especially since I always kept a foreign language in the mix, and I only got straight As in those.
As the semesters rolled by, I focused less on my classes, and more on social life, Friday TGIFs, and drinking parties. It was largely about music, dancing (I was an excellent dancer, having taken dancing classes in lieu of gym or P. E.), and chasing girls. As to the girls, I wouldn't have known what to do with them if I had caught them.
My mother made the common motherly mistake of trying too hard to control my life, with the result that living at home became intolerable. In June of 1963 I left San Diego for San Francisco. I was traveling in a car with four school friends. We drove all night, arriving early the next morning. To me, coming from San Diego, the air felt like Alaska. We drove up to the top of Telegraph Hill, and looked down at the piers and the Bay. As I looked, I said to myself, "I'm never going back," That turned out not to be true, but I had a real adventure ahead of me.
Our goal was the Berkeley Folk Festival at the University of California. Some of us could afford to go in, but the rest, including me, had to hang around the fountain in Sproul Plaza, and hear what music we could from outside. Two of us, myself and another guy, would be staying on in SF after the Festival. I had only sixty-four dollars in my pocket, which I could not spend on non-necessities.
For a couple of days we stayed at the Chestnut Street apartment of our friend Cheryl and her mother. Then the other guy who was staying, Emil, and I got a room in a skid row hotel for two dollars a night. It reminded me of another book I had read, DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON, by George Orwell. After a week there, our friend Orion would be arriving, and we would all look for an apartment..
As it turned out, we took a nice, furnished five-room flat in the Outer Mission, for $98 a month. That was about $32.50 each, but I had arrived with only $64, and would have to spend something on food, so I'd have to get a job, and fast. I did.
(to be continued)
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